by Linda Welch
***
“You’re going to forgive him,” Mel said.
“Why? How can I? He doesn’t deserve it.”
“As he said, he didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“What was he supposed to do?” Jack put in. “If he fought the other demons for Maud’s body, what then? Did you think that far?”
Were they out of their freaking minds? I couldn’t believe Mel and Jack were defending Royal, their arch-rival, the guy who took my attention away from them. “No,” I admitted. “But he took me there. Knowing what they were going to do, he still took me.”
“Because something valuable could come of it. Her death would have purpose.”
“He didn’t know so, and she didn’t tell us anything useful, anyway.”
“He took the chance, to discover who the murderer is, to prevent more deaths. He did it for the good of us all, Tiff.”
“For the good of Gelpha and Dark Cousins,” I amended.
“And they don’t deserve to live?” from Mel. “Because they’re not humans? And what if the killer starts in on human beings?”
I looked at Jack. “What would you have done, Jack?”
He pulled on his lower lip. “Gee, that’s a tough one, seeing as I’m not Gelpha and I’m dead.”
I finished sorting through the pantry and began on the cabinets, but so much of what I had might come in handy one day, I left everything there. As I worked, I thought over what Jack and Mel said. My roommates are much more than resident ghosts. They are the only shades with whom I’ve had a prolonged relationship, and they taught me a lot about the lingering dead. Jack was right, the dead are still people. They don’t have corporeal bodies, they cannot exist as we do, but they retain their emotions and their powers of reasoning. That can deteriorate over time, and Jack and Mel can be childlike, but very often they speak common sense, and not a few times have steered me in the right direction.
I gave up on the cabinets and sat at the kitchen table, not knowing what to do next. On impulse I picked up the kitchen phone and punched in a number.
A feminine voice answered. “Hello?”
Colin had a visitor? “Is Colin there?”
“Not right now.”
“And you are. . . ?”
I would not give out that information over the phone, but this woman told me without hesitation. “I’m Colin’s girlfriend.”
Oh.
“Can I take a message?”
I didn’t want to be the mysterious female who asked for her boyfriend then hung up, and I did not want to leave my name. I said the first thing to come into my mind. “This is Caroline with Bermans. I’m calling to tell you about - ”
“Thank you,” she cut in, her voice degrees cooler. “We’re not interested.”
“I’m sure if you - ”
She cut me off again. “Thank you for calling. Good-bye.”
At least she was polite. Having worked for Bermans and been on the other end of such a call, I knew many people were far from polite to a telemarketer.
I listened to the dial tone for a second, then turned off the phone. Why did I call Colin? I had nothing particular in mind to say to him. I had no romantic feelings for him. I was relieved to know he had a girlfriend which, hopefully, meant he no longer had feelings for me. Maybe on an instinctual level I needed some basic contact with someone I could talk to freely, with whom I didn’t need to be secretive, and Colin knew the truth. Maybe I needed a friend.
I hate self-analysis, all it does is twist your brain in knots.
I was a mess.
The afternoon smoldered. I changed into cutoffs and a halter top, and went out back to the orchard with the journal and a soda. I hoped to find something I’d missed in the little book. Did Maud send it or have it sent? Was it a clue to the Gelpha and Dark Cousins murders? But I couldn’t concentrate and got tired of beating off the bugs.
And, of course, I couldn’t get what Jack said out my head. It wasn’t anything other than Royal said, but hearing it from another person made a difference. Jack didn’t say it to defend his actions, as I thought Royal did.
Sometimes my roommates can be logical - I hate when they go all commonsense on me. Since Royal saved my life, I’d seen him as a supernatural knight in shining armor, but that was my problem, not his. Sometimes, like all men, and women, he followed a path he would rather not.
Sitting in my orchard, I asked myself what life without Royal would be like, and realized I couldn’t imagine not seeing him again. But if we stayed together, could I learn to live with what he was, instead of what I wanted him to be? I felt like he betrayed me. Could I get past that? Did I want him enough to try?
Was I the worse kind of hypocrite, to condemn Royal when I’m not exactly lily-white? Technically, I am an accessory to the murder of Gilberto Fuentes.
I got off the lounge chair, picked up my cola and the journal, and headed back to the house.
Jack sidled up to me as I went through the door. “Feeling better?”
I summoned a sick smile. “Not really.”
“Want to hear a good joke?” he offered. “It’ll cheer you up.”
“I’m not that bad off.”
“Aw, c’mon,” he said from behind me. “Have you heard the one about the dead psychoanalyst?”
I groaned aloud. Jack had not told a dead joke in ages. They were never very funny.
Chapter Twenty
Gia cradled the journal in her hands. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
I was getting mighty tired of sitting in Royal’s apartment under cross-examination by a couple of clients. “I didn’t see a connection. I wondered who sent it to us, and why, but how could I know it had anything to do with killings I knew nothing about?”
Daven paced around the couch, looking agitated, which further unsettled me because he was normally the calm one. “Until Maud spoke of it. You said nothing then, either.”
Gia perched on the couch with her legs tucked under, her high-heeled shoes on the floor. She looked like she wanted to hit me alongside the head with the journal. I concentrated on what Royal had said: she was distraught over her Rio’s disappearance. Still, the look in her eyes set my pulse fluttering in my throat.
Her gimlet glare did not let up. “You read it. Did you reach a conclusion?”
I spread my hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s a real interesting story.”
“There must be a connection,” from Daven.
Gia still glared at me as though I were guilty of criminal negligence. “Obviously, there is. Maud sent it here, she spoke of it with her last breath.”
“Because she spoke of it doesn’t mean Maud herself sent it,” I said.
Royal cleared his throat to get their attention. “Tiff has a certain reputation in Bel-Athaer. She saved the life of the High Lord. I think if Maud sent her the journal, it was because she thought if anyone could help, it would be Tiff.”
“Us,” I corrected. “The journal came to the agency, not to me. Whoever sent it, I wish they’d been more succinct. Instead of the stupid journal, they could have sent a plain old letter.”
“It is beside the point now,” Daven said as he settled next to Gia. “We must put on our collective thinking caps and solve this puzzle.”
“Huh,” Gia said. She left the couch and went to the nearest window. “It’s small. I will read it and thank you not to interrupt me.”
I felt like making a childish face, along with childish remarks about snooty stuck-up bitches, but I didn’t. I’m all grown up and I don’t do things like that anymore. Wished I could, though.
Royal’s apartment looked a little messy and I thought maybe the case was getting to him. But of course it was; the murder victims were his people and our clients had meddled with his mind. Dishes filled the sink instead of his stainless-steel fronted dishwasher and a paper plate sat on the dining table with a crumpled napkin atop. In the living room, although he had swept up the broken glass, t
he battered tree adorned with a mess of broken lights still huddled drunkenly against the wall. A glass half full of spirits perched on the bar. No doubt that lonely dust bunny still hid under the couch. Now this might not seem real untidy to your average person, but as far as Royal was concerned, his apartment had turned into Slobsville.
Royal avoid my gaze and I caught his only by accident. I wanted to ease the awkwardness between us and didn’t know how. We had to work together, at least for this case. Tension and stilted exchanges do not facilitate communication.
As Daven and Royal discussed the case, or cases - did we have one or two? - very quietly so as not to disturb Miss Fiction Writer from hell, I focused on the man in the black Mercedes-Benz. A man with money and power. He sent men after Daven. Could he be the Charbroiler? If so, he didn’t do his own dirty work, but was the mastermind behind the killings. He took Rio because Rio witnessed the attempt on Daven’s life.
My breath caught in my throat - maybe he had another motive. His men saw Gia at Daven’s house, how she killed Ronald and John. The Charbroiler, the killer of Gelpha and Dark Cousins, would know Gia for one of them. Finding her would be his main objective, of more importance than silencing a young Latino punk. Perhaps he meant to use Rio to find Gia.
I didn’t want to think what someone as brutal would do to Rio Borrego to make him talk. I sure as hell was not going to voice my suspicions to Gia.
But if I was right, he must be in the area. You would not transport what could be your biggest asset to another state when your quarry was here.
The Utah DMV check had turned up nothing, so not a longtime local resident, or he hadn’t registered his vehicle in Utah. Some people don’t till they must; they keep their old license plate as long as they can.
Which left me with nothing to go on.
Ping! - bright idea. I could always check with my buddies. Time to do what I did best: pound the pavement and talk to dead people.
I got to my feet. “Think I’ll take off.”
Gia looked up from the journal.
“I’m gonna ask around town about the Mercedes.”
With her eyes on the journal again, she wafted a hand at me. “Wait.”
Royal nodded at the couch. He agreed with her. I sat with a thump.
She closed the book a few minutes later and held it up. “You should read this,” she told Daven.
She took the book to Daven and sat beside him as he read, and I silently grumped. Another wait, but the journal was small, and Daven was either a fast reader or he skipped parts. He closed it after just a few minutes. With it in one hand, he rose and strolled behind the couch to the window which overlooks the street. I wished they’d just stay together, first one at the window, then the other.
Daven finally went back to Gia. “We must go there.”
“Yes,” Gia said. “Do you think . . . is it possible?”
He sat beside her and handed her the diary. “That is what we must discover.”
What were they talking about? Gia diverted me by saying, “But why did Elizabeth’s journal came to you”
“No idea. Elizabeth and those who murdered her are long gone.”
“Murdered?”
I kept digging that hole deeper with every word come out my mouth. “A German guy, name of Hans Stadelmann, wrote a book on the expedition.”
“You have it?” Royal asked.
I shook my head. “I read it in Vegas.”
“And?” Gia prompted.
So I told them about Stadelmann’s book.
“Yet another piece of information you kept to yourself,” Gia pointed out, her expression grim.
“It’s connected to the journal and I told you, I had no idea the journal had anything whatsoever to do with the murders! How could I?” I protested, my voice high with exasperation. If she were human I’d be close to slapping her out of that couch.
“The journal was sent to you, specifically. Did Maud think your talents would be useful?” Daven asked.
I gave my head an impatient little shake. That someone sent me the journal never had felt right. Knowing it came from Maud made less sense. My only edge over other investigators is I talk to dead people, and that would not have helped, except Maud ended up dead and I talked to her shade. But she didn’t know what would happen when she mailed the journal.
So why me? Unless. . . . I grimaced as an idea settled into place. “It was for Royal, not me,” and answered Gia’s question before she could open her mouth. “He’s an enforcer for Gelpha activities in this world.”
She tapped one long red fingernail on her teeth before saying, “That actually makes sense.”
“It does?” Lord Almighty, I actually said something she considered intelligent.
“Yes,” Royal said, “because I would have given the journal to them.”
They had lost me, all of them. “And this would be because. . . ?”
“Dagka Shan and his people . . . we could share a common ancestry,” Daven said.
I took a moment to mull it over, but couldn’t why see the Dark Cousins reached that conclusion. “You got that from the journal?” I had to ask.
“The etchings on Nagka’s walls. We have been here a long time, Miss Banks, and we did not always look as you see us now,” Gia said.
“Long arms and legs, pointed teeth?”
“We change with the times,” she said, which told me nothing at all.
I looked down at my twined fingers. So Dagka Shan and his people could have been Dark Cousins, and the more I learned of Dark Cousins the more it seemed to me they were related to Gelpha. It had to be relevant to this big sorry mess
Daven said: “I will arrange passage to Myanmar.”
Whoa there! I read about modern Myanmar. They have enforced labor, forbidden areas, guerilla bands, and women have to wear skirts. “Not me.”
Gia glared at me before looking at Royal. “Could we go to Myanmar through Bel-Athaer?” she asked him.
Royal made a face. “I’m afraid not. It was a one-off for you and Daven.”
I saw panic in those great dark eyes. Her gaze darted to Daven. She stared at him for a few seconds, clasped her hands on her lap and looked down at them. “Our journey to Kazan was swift, but what you suggest will take many days. I cannot leave here.”
Daven gave one of those attractive Gaelic shrugs which involve shoulders, arms and hands. “I understand. I will go alone.”
She met his eyes. “I will worry about you.”
She didn’t want to leave the area because she still hoped we would find her Rio, but she worried about Daven going off alone to Myanmar. Maybe she wasn’t such a bitch after all.
But I bet she would say or do something to change my mind.
“I speak the language and I am not without resources,” Daven said. “And I do feel we should investigate this Nagka.” He turned his head in my direction. “Do you remember if Stadelmann described the route to the city?”
I creased my brow, concentrating. I have a good memory for details, but I compartmentalize them, stow them away in a corner until I need them. I had to summon up Hans Stadelmann’s record of his journey to the lost city.
“He flew to Bangkok, to Yangon, then to Myitkyina. Then he went by foot, east to the Shan Plateau and some place called Ngawlanwngtam.” I couldn’t pronounce the cities in Myanmar, but Gia helpfully corrected me. I gave her a sour look and continued: “Nagka is east of Ngawlanwngtam near the Myanmar/China border.”
The four of us went upstairs to Royal’s bedroom and office. Although it doesn’t look so when you’re standing on Twenty-Second, the top floor is half the size of the others, the ceiling slanting sharply to the floor on the north side. A door gives access to a flat roof and a wrought-iron staircase which spirals down the rear of the building. The master bathroom which overlooks Twenty-Second is bigger than the bedroom.
The blue silk sheets on Royal’s king-size bed were all over the place, the pillows on the floor. The Dark Cousins didn’t appear t
o notice the disheveled appearance of the room. They went right to the computer and summoned up Google Earth.
I eyed the bed and remembered happier times.
The area where Nagka possibly hid looked small on the screen, but for all I knew could be hundreds of miles. Maybe thousands. Just how big is Myanmar? Google couldn’t go in for a close look at Myitkyina, just a little square on the map. It didn’t show Ngawlanwngtam.
I was glad when we trooped back down to the living room, because those sheets distracted me something awful.
Before Daven and Gia left, Gia again asked if they could go through Bel-Athaer to reach Myanmar. She was torn between going there and staying in Clarion. “Could you not at least ask the High Lord?”
This time Royal’s voice held more sympathy. “A waste of time. I am sorry.”
“But - ”
“He told me, specifically, you are forbidden Bel-Athaer.”
I heard the reluctance of his tone. He didn’t want to tell them. Daven frowned fiercely.
“The High Lord can forbid us nothing!” Gia hissed.
“Remember our pact,” Daven said.
Pact? All these little pieces of information made me want to pin a Dark Cousin to the floor and make them tell me everything there was to know. But I knew they wouldn’t elaborate. I could only stow it all away, hoping I’d learn more one of these days.
“I wonder why the he wanted to see us in the first place?” Daven asked.
Gia humphed through her nose. “So he could humiliate us?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “He’d never seen anything like you. Maybe he wanted to make sure he could identify Dark Cousins if he happened on them.”
Gia didn’t like the way I emphasized the name, and I bet she didn’t miss how I called her anything, not anyone. She stared at me for a second, making little icy fingers crawl up my spine.
Royal said: “Lawrence learned of Dark Cousins and my request provided an opportunity to see one. Merely curiosity.”
“He said nothing to us,” Daven commented.
Royal hunched one shoulder and looked away from them. “It’s not as if you three had anything to discuss.”